Inside look at high school and Oakland University sports from Oakland Press sports writer Dave Pemberton.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Oakland County football powers

This Friday three of Oakland County’s top programs of all time will take the field with their 2008 playoff hopes on the line. Farmington Hills Harrison (4-3) plays at Clarkston, Birmingham Brother Rice (4-3) plays at Flint Powers and Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (4-3) plays at Davison.

This fact got some of us in The Oakland Press office wondering if there was ever a year all three didn’t make the playoffs. Well I found the answer, which is yes back in 1985. Of course only 64 teams made the playoffs that year, not the current 256 teams. Harrison went 7-2 in 1985, but still missed the playoffs.

Since the MHSAA playoffs have started it’s only happened three times. The other two years are 1979 and 1975. In both those years only 32 teams made the playoffs. If the MHSAA used its current format since the playoffs were created back in 1975 then it would have never happened. Harrison went 7-2 and Brother Rice went 6-3 in 1979 and Harrison went 7-2, Brother Rice 8-1 and St. Mary’s 7-1 in 1975.

Just one of these storied programs missing the playoffs in any year is surprising. Here is a breakdown for each team.

Farmington Hills HarrisonThe Hawks have missed the playoffs just once (2004) since the field expanded to 256 teams in 1999. Overall Harrison has missed the playoffs just seven times in 32 years. In those seven years the Hawks have only had a losing record twice and under the current format would have only missed the playoffs three times, 2004 (4-5), 1992 (4-5) and 1978 (5-4).

Birmingham Brother RiceBrother Rice has never missed the playoffs since the field has expanded to 256 teams. The Warriors have missed the playoffs 13 times since 1975, but four of those times were when the field was 128 teams, three times when the field was 64 teams, four times when the field was 32 times and twice when it was 16. The Warriors would have missed the playoffs just once under the current format of 256 teams, 1985 when they went 4-5.

Orchard Lake St. Mary’sSt. Mary’s has missed the playoffs just once (2002) since the field has expanded to 256 teams. The Eaglets have missed the playoffs 18 times since 1975. Of those 18 times, four were when the field was 128 teams, four when the field was 64 teams, seven when the field was 32 teams and twice when it was 16 teams. St. Mary’s would have missed the playoffs just four times under the current format of 256 teams, 2002 (3-6), 1985 (5-4), 1984 (2-7) and 1979 (2-7).

Don’t know if anybody else found this as interesting as me, but thought I would share it. I was able to get all this information using the site http://michigan-football.com, so thanks to them for having such a useful site.